Some artists are proportioning their works to approximate the Golden ratio. Special form of the golden ratio is golden rectangle, in which the ratio of the longer side to the shorter is the golden ratio. It has been said that the Golden Rectangle is the most visually satisfying of all geometric forms. The strange thing is that we don’t know why human eye likes it.

Composition is one of the most challenging yet powerful and exciting aspects of painting. It is the technical foundation of your painting. Without it, paintings visually fall apart. Careful consideration of the composition before putting paint to surface will make your session more enjoyable, and contribute to the success of your painting.

Pleasing shapes, interesting coincidences, existential ramifications, and some mathematics reality... using this unique set of mathematical concepts can create an innate linear balance when used formally for composing your artwork. This is one of those weird places where science interacts with visual aesthetics, philosophy, and the meaning of life. Maybe.

The rule of thirds is a powerful compositional technique for making photos more interesting and dynamic. It's also perhaps one of the most well known. This article uses examples to demonstrate why the rule works, when it's ok to break the rule, and how to make the most of it to improve your photography.

Many design­ers, whether tra­di­tion­ally schooled or not, have trouble with com­pos­i­tion. I’ve sat with plenty of design­ers who simply moves things around until they feel ‘right’. Design is, in essence, com­mu­nic­a­tion (I know, I know, I rant about this enough, but this isn’t one of them) but the vehicle for com­mu­nic­a­tion is the design. One of the key com­pon­ents in the vehicle of com­mu­nic­a­tion is com­pos­i­tion, and in design school­ing it is some­thing that is taught as some­thing you should feel rather than cre­ate logic­ally. This has always bothered me.

I got quite apt at planning out pictures with this classical method as the underpinning for composition. I gained a much better understanding of all the Renaissance, Classical and Baroque Art. Even the Impressionists were steeped in the use of geometrically designed compositions.

The “golden ratio” has fascinated artists and mathematicians for over 2000 years. It’s a mathematical formula observed in nature and used by artists, architects, designers, and even musicians in countless ways.

The ancient Greek civilization studied shapes, patterns, and proportions that existed in the natural world around them and found that, from among them all, that the "Golden Proportion" was the most simple, beautiful, and perplexing of all. Found naturally in plant and animal form it led the Greeks to theorize that the same natural beauty existant in nature should be utilized in manmade creations (art, architecture, music, etc.) if they, too, were to be thought of as beautiful.

This post is for the graphic designers, photographers, architects, and other "form" designers reading my blog. Since discovering & researching the Golden Ratio, I can sincerely say that my aesthetics has improved dramatically! Not to mention (by utilizing some of the tools I'm about to share with you) the improved productivity I have experienced!

Now you can instantly draw the golden sections, or other divine proportions, as an aid to composition. This plugin can draw fibonacci sequences such as the golden sections, golden spiral and the golden triangles. In addition it also can draw the harmonious triangles and the rule of thirds - based on composition through identity. The best way to use the plugin is to output the drawing to a transparent top layer you can move around for cropping.

As the Golden Section is found in the design and beauty of nature, it can also be used to achieve beauty and balance in the design of art. This is only a tool though, and not a rule, for composition. The Golden Section was used extensively by Leonardo Da Vinci. Note how all the key dimensions of the room and the table in Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" were based on the Golden Section, which was known in the Renaissance period as The Divine Proportion.

If there's something about a painting that simply doesn't feel right but you can't figure out just what it is, go back to the basics. Squint your eyes to check the balance of light and dark tones. Identify the major elements in the composition to see how they related to one another, and check if they work with the Rule of Thirds.

One of the basic rules of composition is the rule of thirds. This is a very basic rule, that is often ignored by amateurs, and can drastically improve your pictures. Here is how this rule works: imagine that you draw lines across your frame to form a tick-tack-toe playing board. (you should end up with nine identical squares). Now the image is divided to thirds, both horizontally and vertically. See the diagram for lines positions.

There's no doubt that the best way to improve your photography and take better pictures is simply to do it and develop your own eye. But there are a few little principles and guides that can be really useful and help to focus your attention when shooting. I've tried to sweep away all the waffle and jargon, and provide a clear introduction to some basic photography composition principles...

The Rule of Thirds is probably one of the most basic rules that has been used in painting for ages. It is a compositional rule of thumb that is commonly used in the visual arts today including painting, photography and design.

The Divine Proportion is often represented by the golden spiral. This is the tool used by artists and sculptors to achieve remarkably accurate proportion and aesthetic composition. In the golden spiral, the ratio of the length of the side of each square to the length of the side of the next smallest square is in the golden ratio; the rectangles formed by the combination of squares are golden rectangles; and at every quarter-turn, the spiral gets wider by a factor of Phi.

can count on one hand the number of rules I will obey without question, based solely on fear of catastrophic consequences: I turn off personal electronics during landing and take-off, I keep my hands inside the ride at all times, I don’t rock vending machines, I resist the urge to climb over zoo fences and I no longer lunge for a police officer’s holstered gun on April Fools Day. Pretty much everything else is up for debate.

There are a number of powerful visual areas within a basic rectangle that artists can use to enhance their compositions. Some of those areas we’ve already talked about in our golden ratio tutorial and in last week’s lesson on rabatment.

For centuries artists and designers have used a sum – the golden ratio – to achieve proportion. Here’s how to make it work for you. People studying the golden ratio have found it everywhere from the Pyramids to the Mona Lisa – and even in nature, for example in the veins of leaves. In this tutorial, Roberto Marras shows how to use the golden section in your artwork, to create pieces that work proportionally.

Have you ever wondered why a profound piece of art is so compositionally pleasing? The artist probably employed the use of the Divine Proportion, which is a phenomenon that suggests that there’s a mathematical equation that’s consistent with the aesthetics of good composition. Let’s examine a brief history of the Divine Proportion and its use over the centuries.

Interestingly, dividing two adjacent fibonacci number (8/5 or 21/13, for example) by each other produces increasingly precise approximation of the "Divine Proportion," which we will explore below, as the numbers grow larger.

Any objective observation we make must include a discussion of proportion for it is the rule of proportion in the examination of nature that causes us to observe an organized universe and a universe in chaos, rational and irrational numbers, harmony and discord, truth and falsity. These descriptions are merely proportional effects of the opposition that is inherent in all things.

So how do you find this special proportion? Divide a straight line in two so that the ratio of the whole length to the larger part is the same as the ratio of the larger part to the smaller part. The result (roughly 1.62 to 1) is the golden ratio.

n a nutshell, it is a ratio of two different numbers. A ratio is “golden” if the relationship of the larger to the smaller number is the same as the ratio between the two numbers added together and the larger number. Numerically, the golden ratio is roughly 1.618 to 1. But for your art, you don't need to worry about the exact number. With a ruler and a pencil, you can quickly divide the entire canvas to create a workable basis for your composition designed around the golden ratio.

This article explains what is the Divine proportion and what is the Rule of Thirds and describes how you can apply both of them effectively to your designs. Of course, there are many possibilities. Hopefully, this post will help you to find your way to more effective and beautiful web designs or at least provide some good starting points you can build upon or develop further.